by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Oct 22/97) - Ericka Chemko is Rankin Inlet's full-time volunteer.

The 22-year-old former Nanaimo, B.C., resident is working in Rankin as a supervisor at Kivalliq Hall, where out-of-town students live while attending high school.

"It's more like having a big sister -- the experience of having a peer as a supervisor," she said of the work she does at the dorm.

Chemko said her age has a lot to do with the kind of relationship she has with the students who live at Kivalliq Hall. Often, she's more like a friend who's there when needed.

"Technically, I'm a volunteer, but I do whatever needs to be done -- counselling, cooking," she said.

Chemko is part of Frontiers Foundation/Operation Beaver, a non-profit organization that sends volunteers to Northern areas where they can provide educational-type services to the people who live in there. Operations Beaver sends volunteers to the North to help with building schools and other public construction projects.

She said it's the people in Rankin Inlet and across the Keewatin she's met who give her the most satisfaction from her work. People who welcomed her to the community made her quickly make up her mind to stay when she first arrived Aug. 6.

"I had no idea what to expect when I came to Rankin," she said. "After one day or two days, it was home. I felt relieved, settled in. I knew I was going to stay after two weeks."

Chemko felt so welcome at the beginning that she decided to extend her stay in Rankin Inlet. The Frontiers Foundation required her only to stay 4-6 months, and she has signed on for a year.

"I knew within two weeks that I didn't want to leave Rankin," she said.

After a couple of months in the community, Chemko is volunteering as a Girl Guide leader and at the community access Internet lab. She is also taking Inuktitut lessons and substitute teaching at Leo Ussak school. She's even tried drum dancing.

She's excited about the year ahead of her and looks forward to becoming an active member of the community.

"I'm learning a lot about a part of Canada that I knew nothing about before coming here," she said.

Chemko is no stranger to different cultures. After a year and a half at university studying geography and anthropology, she travelled to Bolivia where she worked as volunteer for three weeks at the end of 1995 making wooden desks for school children.

"I was the only foreign person and the only woman (making the desks), which was good," she said. The experience taught her a lot about different cultures, she said.

It was this work that introduced Chemko to volunteering in the North with the Frontiers Foundation.

Despite all the interesting things she's seen since arriving in Rankin Inlet, Chemko said that it's the people who she will always remember.

"It's the people you meet, especially the students," she said.

After finishing her work in the community, Chemko plans on travelling to Cuba, and eventually plans to go back to university. She remains undecided about what she will study.

For now, she will put her effort into her Inuktitut lessons at Nunavut Arctic College.